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UTTINGS; 



BY 



MRS. JOHN WICKLIFFE RICKS, 



AUTHOR OF "WELDED LINKS. 



PRICE, Fifty Cents. 



SAN FRANCISCO : 

Bacon & Company, Book and Job Printers, 

Clay Street, corner of Sansome. 

1877. 



I 



I 




UTTINGS: 



BY 



^ 



MRS. JOHN WICKLIFFE RICKS, 



AUTHOR OF "WELDED LINKS." 



:3 



PRICE, FIFTY CENTS. 



8 5-^ et 



:A 



SAN FRANCISCO : 
Bacon & Company, Book and Job Printebs, 

Clay Street, comer of Sansome. 

1877. 






COPYRIGHT 
By Mrs. John Wickliffe Ricks, 

1877. 



DEDICATIOK 



AVith unfaltering faith in the universal love of God, whose mercy 
to His children " endureth forever," I most lovingly dedicate "Cut- 
tings " to the memory of those brave Reformers, who, ignoring per- 
sonal glory and regardless of the emoluments of fame, have labored 
earnestly for the promotion of truth and the advancement of that 
which pertains to the interests of mankind. 

Mrs. JOHN WICKLIFFE RICKS. 
San Francisco, December, 1876. 



CONTEN"TS. 



Destiny 5 

Memory 6 

Man 8 

Nature's Offering 13 

Hope 14 

Envy 15 

Truth 17 

Nothing But Ashes 19 

Happiness Defined 22 

Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters 23 

Wine is a Mocker 25 

Our Country as It Was and Is 39 

Is Man Intrinsically Evil 47 

Harmony of Spirit and Matter 50 

Has Revelation Ceased ? 54 

Art ^ 62 

In Memory of H. C. Kibbe , 63 



cir^YiXG^^. 



DESTINY. 

Destiny Is a spreading out on the canvas of time 
the untwisted conceptions of God's purposes, which 
have been inlaid in the magnetic cable of eternal 
thought, to be separated into knots and skeins, as 
warp and woof on the reel of eternity, and from 
thence to be woven in the mystic shuttles of Irresist- 
ible Will, to be wound in the loom of Incomparable 
Majesty into faultless fabrics with which to clothe the 
perfection of illimitable works. The tapestry of 
mortal life, the adornments of earth and sky, the glory 
of angels, the bliss of saints, are but the inimitable 
patterns of the Almighty's design, transferred to the 
objects for which they were designed. The develop- 
ments of each day, both in time and eternity, are but 
the results of the unfoldments of the Almighty's pur- 
pose, liberated from the girdle which encompasses 
Divine will. Who shall stay the Lord's intent, or who 
subvert His mighty plan ? The various manifesta- 
tions presented for human observation, are as natural 
a sequence as the cycle of changing seasons. Time 
is the mighty power which unrolls the coil wherein 
is deposited the hidden intents of the Lord. The 
people which are yet to walk this earth ; the statesmen 
which are to manipulate the affairs of nations yet un- 
born ; the orators, poets and scholars who are to elec- 
trify human intelligence in the centuries which lie 
folded back in the swaddling clothes of God's intent. 



live in the chemical processes of the Almighty, as ver- 
itably as do they whose quickened pulses speed them 
on to the unknown. The revolutions of day and 
night, the changing seasons, the fall of rain, summer's 
heat and winter's snow, spring-time and harvest, the 
rushing into life of animate nature, and the created 
beauties of a vast creation, are but the letting out of 
the illimitable sail which is reefed in the mechanical 
skill of Omnipotence. Creation has not been the sub- 
ject of chance, neither was disorder brought out of 
chaos. Everything has developed in harmony, show- 
ing a fitness of each for the adaptability of that which 
should come after. The creations of to-day are the 
foundations upon which the morrow builds its edifice ; 
so in the untold decade of centuries, each has builded 
its pyramid of colossal progress upon the dome of its 
predecessor, each reaching nearer and still nearer the 
perfection of its antetype. 



MEMORY. 

Memory is the canvas sheet of the soul, upon which 
are outspread an imperishable panorama of all the 
devices which the mind has conjectured or the spirit 
conceived. It is the talisman of the past, and the 
exchequer whose tribunal shall justly adjudge the 
unfoldings of the great scroll of life. The paint 
of excuse, mixed with the oil of repentance and the 
grief of despair, may not obliterate one trace which the 
brush of thought has stereotyped on this magnetic scroll . 



Its cartoons are as varied as have been the flights 
of thought, the conceptions of imagination, the acts of 
Hfe, or the pictures presented in the spiritual, intellect- 
ual, moral, affectional or physical of human experience. 
She takes the canvas sheet of the soul, fresh from 
nature's own hand, and writes upon its surface the 
sentiments and passions of the human heart. She 
unrolls her canvas sheet on which earth and sky are 
painted, so that the mind can examine all the hues and 
forms of sensible things in its impressions of the past. 
She sends her telegrams beyond the tomb and brings 
us messages from eternity, from those whom we first 
loved, in their happiest moods and sweetest express- 
ions. She sees them rise above the ao^onies of disso- 
lution, and gives us back our cherished ones in the 
loveliest forms they wore. She sends her messages 
back to the green of her earliest gambols, and pushing 
her electric wires through the vault, bridges over the 
boundary of time, and brings light from eternity. 
She triumphs on the wings of faith, and paints a road- 
way to glory. Uniting her canvas with that of past 
ages, she scales the ladder of history, and runs down 
the pages of its unfoldings, inweaving their record 
into her own sublime canvas. The cobwebs of time 
may dim its texture and throw a shadow over its 
pictures, but the brush of eternity shall make radiant 
every cartoon upon its surface, and bring them out 
with renewed splendor. It shall be the mansion 
through which the disenthralled spirit may roam at 
will, gathering fresh blossoms from the germs of 
thought, which budded on the canvas of life, to reap 
their full fruition in the sunshine of immortality. 
Being en rapport with those who have passed on ages 



before, she links the canvas of mortah"ty to that of 
celestial order, and weaves the fabric of time and that 
of eternity into one scroll, while she follows rapidly 
the unfoldings of the great mystical cable of eternity, 
as God unlooses the coils from the hand of His Im- 
perial Majesty, giving to man the scope of the past, 
present and future as a field for his explorations. In 
this " house of many mansions,'^ its treasures shall 
forever multiply, imparting to translated souls a restful 
labor which shall yield a harvest of perpetual joys, and 
an eternity of new delights. 



MAN. 

From the circle of revolving cycles swung out into 
active conscious existence by the pendulum of eternal 
thought, came forth man as the outgrowth of Divine 
wisdom and beneficence, being the positive creation of 
Infinity, brought upon the arena of life in juxtaposition 
to God, having received his spirit fresh from the breath 
of the Almighty, bearing the Divine impress as a seal 
of kinship, and an heir to immortality; he raises 
above the physical of his being a superstructure 
lasting as is eternity, inwrought with the embellish- 
ments of a crowned intellectuality, and a burnished 
spirituality in which the Godhead is typified ; he is 
joined to Infinity by the link of immortality, and is 
allied to God by reason of spiritual assimilation, and a 
mental capacity for unraveling the principles in- 
wrought in the combination of elements which form the 



unity and harmony of God's mysterious laws. Grow- 
ing up into the full stature of manhood by the unity 
of his spiritual and intellectual nature, he untwists the 
riddle of life ; by the application of his soul unto 
wisdom, associated with his intellectual unfoldment he 
wears the signet of the Infinite upon his brow, and 
becomes the associate of the purified, and with them 
walks in the light, and takes sweet counsel of God. 
He discerns the tides of life, and so gauges its streams 
by healthful exercise and proper nutrition as to pre- 
serve the equilibrium of the body to the full measure 
of its appointed years. By judicious discipline and 
care of the mental, he becomes capable of traversing 
realms of thought where nought but elements con- 
taining principles of Godhood may tarry. By his 
spiritual clairaudient susceptibility he catches messages 
wafted from spirit-land, giving him assurance of the 
life which is to come ; and he triumphs in the promises 
of immortality which are inscribed within the volumes 
of his own soul. Unfolding their pages, one by one, he 
becomes en rapport with the harmonies of God's 
earthly temple, and there holds communings with ser- 
aphims whose harmonious songs reverberate through 
earth and sky. Wisdom and mercy have their habi- 
tations in this purified mansion ; there the lamps of 
God afe ever kept burning, rendering the otherwise 
night of the soul luminous as the day. The flaming 
swords of purity ever guard the gates of that structure, 
that nothing which defiles may enter therein. Of all 
created earthly intelligences, man is the only one with 
an organization compounded of such parts that, being 
in perfect harmony with himself, he can catch the in- 
fluences from without, and determine with accuracy 



lO 

the nature of the spiritual, intellectual, mental and 
moral condition of those with whom he comes in con- 
tact, becoming in fact a highly sensitive psychological 
scale, to enter whose presence is to throw off the 
gossamer web which conceals the human character 
from the gaze of those whose only province it is to see 
material things through the natural vision. 

These psychologic gifts, though inherent in man, 
are less frequently brought into requisition than any 
other element in his nature, although being of the 
utmost importance to guide him in his daily transact- 
ions of life, yet are they known less of than the minor 
laws which pertain to the sustenance of the body ; 
nor will they have their full unfoldment in man until 
the spiritual and intellectual are inthroned as umpire 
of head and heart, thus forming a perfect, harmonious 
trinity of soul, body and intellect. Man thus attuned 
has the windows of his soul opened, and light comes 
streaming in upon his spiritual vision, direct from God, 
the good Father of all intelligences ; permeating, en- 
riching and purifying his entire nature, so that he is 
enabled to behold spiritual and intellectual beauties, 
and trace them in their rich unfoldments as readily as 
he does the charms which are presented to his outer or 
bodily vision. Man thus illuminated is not altogether 
the subject of circumstances : he works out the de- 
velopment of his own character, having first put him- 
self in a condition by which the good Father works 
through him to do His good pleasure. Being thus 
disciplined, he is in accord with God, moving in spirit- 
ual harmony to the Divine will, and becomes receptive 
to the teachings of angelic agencies, by which God 
has ordained to bring men unto Himself. God and 



1 1 



humanity are one grand body, of which God is the 
heart and brain, mankind being the members. IntelH- 
gence is the nerve-work of this grand structure, and 
Hke the human system, that which affects the remotest 
part, the brain instantly takes cognizance of. So it is, 
the intelHgence of " a sparrow shall not fall to the 
ground without your Father's " notice. By reason of 
the superiority of man's intelligence, he is lifted to an 
exalted position in this intellectual mesh-work of nerve; 
and whatever affects him, be he Hindoo, Mussulman, 
Pagan or Christian, sends a thrill to the responsive 
heart of the universal Father, calling attention to the 
child He has created, to a member of His complex, 
yet merciful system. Hence it is that the thought of 
man triumphs over space, and his soul-petitionings 
reach the ear of the Almighty. Man walking in the 
dignity of his intellectual, spiritual and moral strength, 
has a soul affiliation to God, and is in communion with 
Him " by whom and through whom all things exist." 
Man is not left unto himself alone, aided only by sight 
and reason. The good Father addresses Himself to- 
day to the understanding of man through the spiritu- 
ality of his nature, by convoy of seen and unseen 
angels, as veritably as he spake to Balaam in the valley 
of Pethor. Numbers: Chap. 22; verses 22 to 35 in- 
clusive. And His mighty love to man is none the less 
now, than when He opened the spiritual eyes of the 
Prophet that he might see " the angel of the Lord 
standing in the way." And men even now have sore 
occasion to say to the angel as did Balaam : " I have 
sinned, in that I knew not that thou stoodest in the 
way against me." " The mercy of the Lord endureth 
forever," and " His hand is not shortened that it can 



12 

not save," through the agencies of His divine appoint- 
ing. We are indebted to the ministrations of angels 
for the wise teachings of Paul. Had he not, by the 
Spirit of Christ, been arrested on his way to Damascus, 
and his soul vision opened, would he not have con- 
tinued to persecute the saints, honestly supposing that 
he was doing God's service ? The human mind is 
spiritually blind until God touches the windows of the 
soul, and aids reason by the illuminating influences of 
His own divine Spirit. Let not man frequent the hab- 
itations of vice, nor walk in the counsel of the ungodly, 
if he would have it possible for angels to minister to 
his spiritual necessities. Though the shackles of 
bondage were to fall from his loosed spirit, and the 
prison gates of his soul were all unbarred, and his 
inner life made radiant with divine glory, yet the fre- 
quency of sin shall forge chains from which the inter- 
position of God's mercy shall alone be able to wrest the 
reimprisoned spirit. Of all the mechanism of God's 
vast creation, there is nothing so sensitive as the mag- 
netic touch of the human soul. The least of all its 
tendrils,when moved upon by outward influences, sends 
a reverberatory thrill to the minutest part of its deli- 
cate yet indestructible structure. And this is the real 
- man, the physical, being the mere outer covering of 

N: this imperishable edifice. Every being who lives is 
"v. his or her own master mechanic, building up from the 
'^^^^^^ ^base^soul a furnished habitation,which shall survive the 
wastes of time, and, rising above the dissolution of the 
mortal, shall rear its ethereal temple to the honor of 
immortal glory, or the threatening dangers of humili- 
ation and despair. 



'3 



NATURE'S OFFERINe. 

Where the leaves shall talk together, 
And the answering waters sigh, 

Where all nature joins the choral, 
Tiny insect, buzzing fly. 

Where the flowers ope their petals, 
Looking upward to the sky. 

In their face of wondrous beauty 
Ofler incense — well as I. 

And the lowing of the cattle 

Answering to the call amain. 

And the heifer by the brooklet 
As she joins in the refrain, 

In her neck stretched out and upward. 
In her meek and wistful eye. 

Worship God in every impulse, 
Well as 3^ou, oh! saint, or I. 

Nature all joins in the anthem. 

Sings a song least understood; 

There's no offering half so ample 
As the wild primeval wood. 

Sings she in her leafy branches, 

Sings she in her clustering vines. 

Offers worship in the zephyrs, 

Whispering through majestic pines. 

There the silver-luted songsters 

Sing their vestal hymns of praise, 



14 

And their worship is as grateful 

As the Psahiiist's sweetest lays. 

And the poor unlettered red-men 
Wandering in ancestral wood, 

Have communings with the Father, 
With the spirit of all good. 

In the innocence of childhood, 

In the unheard breath of prayer, 

In the silent tear of sorrow 

Dwells the Lord God even there. 



HOPE. 

Like the roseate hue of morning's proudest Aurora, 
Hope paints her gilded offering on the panoply of the 
soul, adorning it with those charms and graces which 
render life an ambrosial bower, whose sweet fragrance 
dispenses its generous benefactions on all who come 
within the radius of its sweet perfume. She crowns 
the mountain tops of the heart's loftiest aspirations, 
and writes upon their crests with the pencils richest 
drapery the embellishments of her fairest promises. 
She lights up the world with the halo of her glory. 
To the lone mariner she is his polar star, his beacon 
lio-ht. She lights up the darkness of the dungeon 
and gives a radiance of glory in the gloom of despair. 
To the orphan in the desolation of his lonely musings, 
she is his companion and sweet comforter. To the 
distressed in every sphere of life, she is the panacea 



15 

for all their sorrows, and a balm for every contrite 
spirit. She pierces the darkest vaults of death, clothes 
with imperial robes of trust and confidence the trem- 
bling soul in its exit to the unknown, and points the 
departing spirit in its new arena of life, safe to the 
haven of triumphant rest in the bosom of its God. 



ENVY. 

Unsavory as bitter waters, rayless as the vaults of 
the tomb, cold as the Stygian river: such is the soul, 
whose radius encircles and fosters the foul spirit of 
envy or revenge. Hissing serpents crawl within its 
charnel-house — and the poison of the Upas issues from 
its tongue. 

Like the forked lightning, laden with the missiles of 
death, it strikes at its unsuspecting victim in the day 
of its brightest glory, when there is not a cloud on the 
canopy of the soul to give warning of its approach. 
The roll of thunder carried far and wide on the 
barbed tongue of scandal, is the chariot of its armor 
bearer. 

From the fragrance of sweetest flowers it culls nox- 
ious vapors, and from the brightest effulgence proceed- 
ing from the luminous orb of a pure spirit and a bright 
intellectuality, its dwarfed heart only feels the wither- 
ing blight of the night-shade. On the perfection of 
beauty it reflects its own hideousness. From nature's 
exhaustless laboratory of fruit and flowers, healing 
streams, and cooling shades, it gathers nought but bit- 



i6 

ter herbs. It shakes hands only with darkness, and 
fattens in the valley of Death, on the bleached bones 
of its own victims. Its garments are tattered rags, 
torn from vestal robes with which to cover its own 
hideousness, and it reeks with the slain of its own de- 
spoilation. It forced its way into Paradise, and witness- 
ing the more perfect estate of God's later creation, se- 
duced the brain of Adam by the fragile form of the 
woman, thus reducing the generation of men to servi- 
tude all the days of their life. It was envy which stung 
the ungenerous heart of Cain into animosity against 
his more favored brother, and sent the stainless soul of 
Abel, perched on an angel's wing, into Heaven. The 
envy of Haman placed himself upon the gallows which 
he had prepared for another, murdered ten of his sons, 
and slaughtered seventy and seven thousand of his kin- 
dred, while it removed the sackcloth and ashes from the 
suppliant form of his intended victim, rescued from de- 
struction a mighty people, and clothing Mordecai in 
royal apparel, placed him next unto King Ahasuerus. 
It was revenge which put the head of John the Bap- 
tist into a charger and gave it into the keeping of a 
strange woman. An envy as base as that which released 
the soul of the first martyr, put the head of the beau- 
tiful Mary, Queen of Scots, to the block, while sister 
angels draped in spotless robes, bending over her 
quivering form, veiled their faces in sorrow at the act 
which sent her pure spirit to the throne of God. 

The venerable age of this Heaven-abhorred culprit, 
renders not its crimes less pernicious than were its 
atrocities in the earlier days of its youth. It requires 
a magnanimity of heart equal to that which caused 
the utterance of the ever memorable words, " With 



17 

malice toward none and charity for all," to look with 
commiseration on those who are addicted to the indul- 
gence of its malign influence. To enable humanity 
to excuse the crime of this offence, an individual must 
be possessed of a spirit of generosity and long for- 
bearance, like unto that which indited the incompara- 
ble prayer, uttered in the dying throes of the Crucified, 
" Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," 
and to give expression to that other prayer : " Forgive 
us our trespasses as we forgive them who trespass 
against us"; and not to have the answering of the peti- 
tion bring maledictions on the suppliant's head, one 
must possess a spirit of forgiveness like unto that of a 
God. 



TRUTH. 

" Clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as 
an army with banners," such in epitome is Truth (the 
Queen of Heaven). In her fair form is embodied all the 
charms with which the Great Artificer has decorated 
His mighty universe. In her divine presence the 
graces of the Pleiades would pale in their spotless 
lustre ; and in their translation to Heaven find a rival 
far excelling in beauty, form, and grace, anything which 
their loftiest imagination could picture, or the brush of 
an Archangel could paint. She dwells in the humble 
dew-drop, and trails her spotless robe uncontaminated 
alike through vast prairies of sweet-scented flowers, o'er 
the hazy dome of Heaven's faultless arch, and through 
the slime, scum, and purlieus of sin-besotted cities. 



i8 

In the magnitude of her proportions she environs the 
infinity of space. 

She rides upon the winged Hghtning, and makes her 
chariot the Universe. Her voice is heard aHke in the 
subHme and awe-inspiring roar of Heaven's artillery, 
and in the musical flow of Ocean's inimitable cadences. 
She speaks her mute language from stony cliffs, from 
arid wastes, from ocean's depths, and heaven's eternal 
dome. Her standard-bearer is the law of infinity, 
written alike upon the tiniest insect upon which our 
unconscious tread crushes out its meagre functions of 
life, as upon the incomparable bow of Jehovah's prom- 
ise suspended in the air. 

With the index finger of Nature's indisputable law, 
she points to her fair proportions, gracing the traversed 
and untraversed vaults of the eternal blue. 

She descends into the depth of ocean, and paints 
her roseate hue, such as a god might envy, upon coral 
reefs, and upon the sea's closeted offerings. On Shas- 
ta's towering height, as upon each trembling blade of 
grass, she has affixed her signet ; and, crowning all the 
mysterious mechanism of humanity, is the central 
pivot upon which she has placed her greatest glory, 
and endowed it with her richest beneficent gifts. She 
was the light that went forth at the fiat of Jehovah in 
creation's early dawn, and her radiance illuminates 
wherever God has spoke creation into life. She is 
kind, though imperative ; generous, yet unforgiving. 
In her there is no " variableness, neither shadow of 
turning.'' Compensation is her just award. " In the 
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," was 
the irrevocable fiat that went forth to those who should 
break her immutable laws. 



19 

Her symmetrical form encompasses the boundaries 
of time, and is the panoply that infolds Jehovah, and 
the magnitude of His incomparable works. At her 
behest the tides obey, and revolving worlds, like mar- 
shaled hosts, in the endless rounds of their circuitous 
journey, obey her mandates ; while the Infinite is the 
fountain-head from whence issues all her divergent 
streams. 



NOTHING BUT ASHES. 

Nothing but ashes ! 

The roses decay — - 
Their beautiful bloom 

Soon fades away 
And leaves 
Nothing but ashes. 

Nothing but ashes ! 

Oh ! memory, how sweet 
It's mystical charms 

Is laid at our feet 
And yields 
Nothing but ashes. 

Nothing but ashes ! 

And is there no rest 
For wearisome care 

Which rankles the breast, 
And leaves 
Nothing but ashes ? 



20 

Nothing but ashes 

For hopes and for fears, 
For joys and sorrows 

Which make up our years, 
Is there 
Nothing but ashes ? 

Nothing but ashes 
On which to recHne ? 

For famishing hearts 
And souls that repine. 
Is there 

Nothing but ashes ? 

Nothing but ashes 

For prodigal son ? 
Or Magdalen's heart. 

Which anguish has wrung, 
Is there 
Nothing but ashes ? 

Nothing but ashes ! 

Has memory's chain 
No link which exists 

Beyond this refrain? 
Is Hfe 
Nothing but ashes ? 

Nothing but ashes 

On which to bridge o'er 
The dark flowing strand 

To Eternity's shore ? 
Is there 
Nothing but ashes ? 



21 

Nothing but ashes ! 

Life's roseate hue 
Fades on the lips — 

Is subtle as dew, 
And leaves 
Nothing but ashes. 

Nothing but ashes ! 

And is there no charm 
Which shall the dark tomb 

Of terror disarm ? 
Is there 
Nothing save ashes ? 

Nothing but ashes ! 

The Crown and the Cross- 
Shall these be accounted 

As idle as dross, 
Which yield 
Nothing but ashes ? 

Nothing but ashes ? 

Yes ! Infinite love — 
A Father's compassion — 

Which flows from above, 
Will yield 
Something save ashes. 



22 



HAPPINESS DEFINED. 

Should I take the wings of the morning, circuiting 
the uttermost parts of the earth ; should I traverse the 
boundaries of time, or delve into the secret chambers 
of Infinity; should I hold converse with the gods, and 
chant with the choirs of the Seraphims, still in none of 
these may I find the priceless gem for which the heart 
ever pants, and for which millions, now consigned back 
to the bosom of earth, lie vanquished in their pursuit 
after the priceless boon. Nor yet, with all life's busy 
throng, replete with its budding hope, and fragrant 
with the incense of the soul's loftiest inspirations, nor 
yet perched upon the giddy pinnacle of fame, ablaze 
with the world's homage, shall this jewel of greatest 
price be found. So great its virtues, so rare the gem, 
that but few are ever able to wear it emblazoned upon 
the shield of the soul. And yet its possibilities are 
within the reach of nearly the entire human family. 
Would you possess this treasure of rarest price : go 
down into the inner temple of the soul — into the " holy 
of holies " of man's nature, and set that inner sanctu- 
ary fully in order, as did the Master drive out the 
money changers, and everything which believeth and 
maketh a lie; and there in that inner temple, in its holi- 
est sanctuary, may this rarest gem be found — a free 
gift fresh from the hand of a beneficent Father, sitting 
there as umpire over head and heart, dispensing bless- 
ings which crowned heads might envy, and at which, 
in rapt admiration, angels might wonder and adore. In 
the harmony of our own nature is to be found this 
priceless boon (happiness). Its growth is eternal, its 



23 

storehouse exhaustless, its resources wide as the uni- 
verse. 'Tis the river of life, which flows in healing 
streams through the city of humanity's soul, making 
glad all who lave in its placid waters. 



Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters. 

Cast your bread upon the waters. 

They are winding to the sea, 
And with human souls are freighted — 

Destined for eternity. 

Cast your bread upon the waters — 

Sow your costly richest grain, 
In the soul's eternal store-house 

'Twill be gathered up again. 

Cast your bread upon the waters, 
Dry the tear from childhood's eye, 

Speak a gentle word of comfort 
To the beggar passing by. 

Cast your bread upon the waters, 
Hear the outcast's awful moan, 

Down into their depths of sorrow — 
Let your love be freely sown. 

Benisons of souls in anguish 

Shall ascend to Heaven's high dome. 

When the " Master " says Come higher, 
They'll be written on His Throne. 



24 

Oh, the bread shall all be gathered, 
For there's not so barren ground 

But that if the seed be planted, 
There shall be a harvest found. 

To the widow and the orphan 
Wheresoe'er distress is known. 

Be it in the gilded palace — 

On the wayside or the Throne — 

Be it clothed in purple vestments, 

Or in rags, 'tis all the same, 
Every word that giveth comfort 

Is the bread and golden grain. 

And the spikenard and the ointment 
Which to use were thought not meet, 

They were far less costly offerings 

Than the tears which washed His feet. 

And the widow with her offering. 
Though it be an humble mite, 

It shall be of greater value 
Than the sacerdotal rite. 

And the man who loves his neighbor, 

Be he e'er so rich or poor, 
He shall surely find acceptance 

As a good and faithful doer. 

And the Book wherein is judgment 
Which the final die shall cast — 

That shall gauge our Hell or Heaven 
Will be the retrospective past. 

Each one's soul shall be the angel 
That records the deeds they've done. 



25 



And so legible be written, 

They shall live when fades the sun 

Yes, the Book of Life shall open — 
It shall be the living soul, 

And each page whereon is written, 
Will be a true and faithful scroll. 

Mountains then shall fail to hide us, 
Subterfuge to fitly screen, 

Honest, earnest soul-endeavor 
Alone can wash the spirit clean. 



WINE IS A MOCKER. 

In the cup of subtle pleasure a thousand furies kin- 
dle the altar of their sacrifices on the burning elements 
of the soul's discomfiture, and, with the cunning sa- 
gacity of a vulture, swoop down into the sanctuary of 
man's strongest citadel, stealing away the proudest 
emporium of his manhood, leaving but the wreck of a 
desolated temple on which God had put the signet of 
his approbation. So inductive are its machinations 
that the wisdom of the sage has been pronounced 
against looking upon, touching, or tasting the seduc- 
tive thing. 

At the marriage feast, where holiest vows are 
pledged, it associates itself in the convivialities of the 
occasion, concealing in its fruits of pleasure a ter- 
rible holocaust that may eventually consume upon its 
altar all the promised hopes and brightest prospects of 



26 

this new elysium. In the halls of state it presents its 
fascinations, kindling the eye and firing the brain with 
a new enthusiasm, as eloquent and grand in its effect 
as it is subtle to destroy. 

The first cup which bedews the lip with its nectar 
may be the cloud whose magnitude shall assume pro- 
portions as vast as the area of one's mortal existence. 
Yea, it may bridge over into the hereafter, requiring 
the majesty of the Infinite to bid its hideousness de- 
part into everlasting darkness, leaving to be mourned 
by angels the wreck of its machinations. Fair 
woman, the right hand and queenly support of man, 
with the sublimity of her exalted and symmetrical na- 
ture, bearing the ancient royal high crown of chief 
workmanship of Jehovah, has been assailed in all the 
purity and strength of her God-like being by this insid- 
ious foe ; and, like withered leaves, has fallen from the 
places sheonce graced and glorified, to join the lament- 
able ranks of the riotous caravan which move in the 
wake of the still. The faces that once rejoiced at her 
coming, blanch with fear at her approach, and the 
places that once knew her, know her no more forever. 
The child, sweet plight of love, who fondled in her 
caress, and carolled its glee upon her bosom, shudders 
at her name. The fond husband, who doted upon a 
trusting, loving wife, laments her in the desolation of 
her glory, in the despoliation of wife and mother. Oh, 
sisters, daughters, wives and mothers, that cup of 
sparkling Burgundy, the exhilerating champagne, has 
in it a fiend more deadly than the effects of the Upas! 
It contains in it vials of wrath as terrible as the seven 
seals. 

From out of it shall issue scorpions that shall sting 



27 

with terror the immortal spirit. It is the foe, than 
which there is none other so much to be dreaded, so 
carefully to be shunned. No pool of Siloam can 
cleanse its leprous spots ; no healing stream can wash 
its record clear ; no Christ can be its propitiator ; 
Heaven has set its fiat against it, and the curse of the 
Infinite consigns it to outer darkness. It is a foe, the 
stench of whose crime reaches unto Heaven. It assails 
the souls whom God has created. It is the despoiler 
of all that is emblematic of truth, wisdom, purity, 
excellence and love. It tears man down with its 
pinched fingers of death, from his high estate of son- 
ship to God ; reduces him to squalid spiritual, intellect- 
ual and moral beggary ; transforms the proud, kingly 
elements of his manhood beneath the degradation of 
the swine, and in loathsomeness renders him more 
disgusting than the serpent Ayhich God consigned to 
crawl on his belly all the days of its life. Of all fiends 
it is the arch one, that goes to-day " up and down the 
earth seeking whom it may devour," and in the subtle- 
ness of its deceit assails the sanctuaries of Heaven, 
and would wrest from the very treasury of Jehovah 
the costliest gems created to emblazon His coronet. 
For its despoliation what has it to offer ? Naught but 
room for another victim. The insatiable maw of its 
foul desires are ever crying. Give ! give ! And there 
comes from yonder tombless mound a warning, mute- 
less voice, " Beware of the wine when it giveth its color 
in the cup." From the culprit trembling 'neath the 
halter which is to send his soul unbidden into the 
presence of its Creator, there to answer for a crime 
perpetrated under the bewildering influence of this 
matchless fiend ; from the vacant seats of legislative 



28 

halls, where once was heard the silver rhythm of the 
voice of oratory that thrilled with admiration and 
awe the enrapped listener with its inimitable flow of 
musical cadences ; from the bar, the absence of the 
dead counsellor, whose pleadings caused the stalwart 
frame, and stoutest heart to tremble, and wet the 
bronzed cheek with tears from eyes long unaccustomed 
to weep — all these send forth in speechless eloquence, 
Lo ! how are the mighty fallen by the bewitching 
allurements lying latent in the fascinations of the 
wine-cup. Who shall answer before that God who 
judges impartially, for the debauchery of the midnight 
carousal ? Or who, in the final summing up of the 
trial which shall adjudge the acts of each one's life, 
shall be held responsible for the crimes which bereave 
innocent ones of their natural protectors ? 

It may be she who is the proudest ornament of prince- 
ly palaces, and the devotee of fashionable sociabilities of 
the most cultured and refined of modern society, whose 
bejeweled hand unwittingly proffers to him who is to be 
the future guardian of her happiness in the glass of 
sparkling champagne the insipient elements from out 
which shall issue the fell destroyer that shall blight 
with a deadly blast all their prospects on the voyage of 
life so auspiciously begun, and bring them both down 
to the sorrows of an untimely and dishonored grave ; 
leaving no memories behind them, save those, the rec- 
ollection of which shall cause the flushed cheek of 
friends to tingle with sorrow and shame. Perhaps the 
doting mother, who offers to her son of yet infant 
years sips from out her cup of toddy, may stand before 
God as the condemned culprit, responsible for the 
blackening crimes her debauched son has perpetrated 



29 

under the influence of liquor, the uncontrollable appe- 
tite having been acquired and fostered by the indulg- 
ence of a loving and unsuspecting mother. The ig- 
norance with which the seeds of a holocaust are sown, 
renders not the fire less destructive. 

No longer is the sin of ignorance winked at, and its 
dreadful effects are mowing down with a remorseless 
swath, the most promising and brilliant of our land. 

The gospel of an enlightened, orthodox, temperance 
salvation, is as vastly needed to-day in the church as 
its effects are wanted outside the pale of its sanctuary ; 
and if a Redeemer should be sent to this world from 
the distant vaults of Heaven, methinks his beneficent 
mission would be to promulgate the salutary gospel 
of total abstinence. So glaring have become the 
crimes induced by the use of alcholic drinks, so ag- 
gressive is its warfare against the best good and morals 
of society, so insidious in its effects upon the intel- 
lectual, moral, spiritual and physical being of those 
who indulge in its use, that an illuminated pronuncia- 
mento against it should be inscribed on the lintels of 
the doors and windows of the residences of all order- 
loving citizens. 

On the chancelof churches, side by side with " Holi- 
ness to the Lord," should be inscribed in golden char- 
acters, " Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and 
whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." At the 
entrance of every avenue of the heart, crowning each 
page of the affectional nature, and on each lintel of 
the chambers of the soul, should be suspended a 
flaming sword, forever to wage a holy warfare against 
the improper and unholy use of this, the most de- 
structive element that now thrusts itself broadcast 



30 

upon our land. The curse of intemperance seems to 
me like the forbidden fruit, of which in the day that 
one partakes they shall surely die, save only as God, by 
His divine interposition, may in mercy wrest them 
from the grasp of this fatal adversary of both body 
and soul. At the wicket gate,where King Alcohol gains 
admission to set up his demoniacal kingdom in God's 
earthly temple, I would station in active force, fully 
armed and equipped, all the battalions of the will power, 
which with the aid of Almighty God are able to with- 
stand any foe from without. The active use of each fac- 
ulty of the will to resist temptation of any kind increases 
its objective force a hundred fold. The effect of in- 
temperance is to cast both soul and body into everlast- 
ing fires, such as are only fitted for the devil and his 
angels ; and to this declaration what man or woman, 
who has felt its flames kindling stomach, brain and soul 
with its consuming fires, would not give his or her 
hearty attestation ? To lull the insatiable demands 
which the fires of liquor kindle, the poor, helpless vic- 
tim cries, " I must have rum ! give me rum ! " each 
draught of which adds a new invoice of devils to the 
legion already rending his poor, distressed physical and 
spiritual shipwrecked soul and body. What has King 
Alcohol to offer in compensation for this sacrifice to 
the dignity and nobility of manhood ? And what does 
he offer to woman in recompense for her fall, and her 
worship at his shrine ? What Satan offered to Christ, 
if he would fall down and worship him — all the king- 
doms of the earth } By no means. This casked-up, 
bottled and labelled modern Satan, for worship and 
kinship to him, offers : First — Dethronement of man- 
hood, alienship from God; and, as a rule, robs of earthly 



31 

treasure, clothes the soul with horror and dismay, and 
leaves his victim, in the misery of his despair, to call 
wildly but fruitlessly upon the rocks and mountains of 
forgetfulness, to hide him from the presence of the 
condemning judge of an outraged conscience, from the 
maledictions of which there is no escape. The de- 
moniacal, consuming fiend has taken up his habitation 
in the soul, his deadly fangs have pierced the spirit, 
and when his victim would escape him, he thrusts him 
down and rends him — the power of the Omnipotent 
•alone being able to put forth an arm, all-powerful, to 
save. For a healthy body, costly garments, and a 
goodly habitation, he compensates by ingrafting the 
system with the germs of disease, which shall only die 
out of the being with the dissolution of the mortal 
frame — not until it shall have been resolved back to 
earth, and have received her purifying process shall 
there be exterminated from it the marks and eifects of 
this unmitigated, unrelenting destroyer. In exchange 
for purple and satin, he clothes his devotee with rags, 
if so be he even leaves rags with which to clothe. For 
comfortable habitations, he turns out his bloated and 
disfigured subject to lie down with the swine (the com- 
panions with which his majesty, in a more ancient 
time, took his bath in the sea). Would to God he had 
not resurrected himself from the ocean's briny depths. 
Possibly, upon the drowning of the swine, he took up 
squatter sovereignty in the whales, and they, preferring 
to maintain their own individual sovereignty, spewed 
him out, like his predecessor, upon dry land, to inflict 
a double curse upon humanity, for the short immunity 
they had received from his satanic kingship. 

The victim of alcohol becomes prodigal of all that 



32 

is endearing in life, or of good repute. The affections 
of wife, the love of children, the prayers of parents, 
the tears of once idolized sisters, to him are as " sound- 
ing brass and tinkling cymbals." Yea, the lessons of 
Calvary, its crown of thorns, the bleeding side of the 
Crucified, the bitter groans and sweat in the garden, 
the midnight prayers in Gethsemane, and the last 
prayer of the self-sacrificing, anointed One, (" Father, 
forgive them, they know not what they do ") to them 
who tarry long at the wine, are as " pearls cast before 
swine." 

For mechanical purposes and as a medicine, spirit- 
uous liquors have their righteous and proper uses. 
So have the deadly night-shade, arsenic and strychnine, 
to cure diseases as fatal as themselves could inflict. 
But pray, what modern belle of society would think 
for a moment of offering to her sweetheart a decoction 
of strychnine, to enliven his spirits for an evening's 
entertainment? Or what judicious mother would 
venture to give to her daughter a dose of arsenic, to 
improve her complexion and give brilliancy to the 
eyes ? Or who would, on New Year's day, present to 
their guests a libation of opium or of night-shade ? 
That might be done if there were no law against it, 
and the host did not desire to receive his guest on the 
return of the next festive occasion. Yet these are not 
more dire in their effects than the glass of wine with 
which fond mothers permit their children to toy. The 
former speedily kills, and throws the pall of death over 
its victim ere it degrades. The latter leads on by a 
thousand snares to inevitable ruin and disgrace. Says 
the Rev. Newman Hall, of New York, a gentleman of 
high social standing, marked ability, scholastic man- 



33 

ners and acquirements : " The Church of England 
within the last three years has lost in membership by 
drunkenness thirty thousand." With this fact staring 
the clergy in the face, the church sanctions the use of 
the first rounds in the ladder to drunkenness by prof- 
fering fermented wine to the lips of the communicant in 
memory of the spilt blood of Christ. There should 
be an act of Legislature in each State requiring manu- 
facturers and dealers to label their casks, flasks, demi- 
johns and bottles of champagne, whisky and brandy, 
as are other less destructive articles of merchandise, 
with the word " Poison, " in legible characters. The lo- 
cal authorities protect the public against the contagious 
disease of the leper. The infectious disease of small- 
pox is regarded of sufficient moment to be brought 
under the jurisprudence of municipal authority; while 
the contagion with which spirituous liquors is sweep- 
ing down with a mighty swath of death thousands 
yearly to an untimely and dishonored grave, is rocked 
with safety in its infectious cradle by the silence of 
executive authority. The devastating influence with 
which alcohol is sweeping like a mighty holocaust 
over this fair land, the debauchery and drunkenness 
of young men in the various grades of society, is at- 
tributable in a great measure to the license that ladies 
give to its abominable use as a beverage. Adam was 
an ungallant bridegroom, but I have no doubt he had 
occasion, as have modern husbands, to stand unveiled 
in the presence of their God and say, " The woman that 
thou gavest me, she tempted me." I doubt not Eve, 
like her more modern sisters, was comely, and there 
was some excuse then as now for Adam's shirking 
responsibility. How many wine-bibbers would there 



34 

be to-day if ladies would invariably ignore its use, and 
refuse to receive the attentions of those who should 
quaff its nectar? Why, it would not be one year 
before grog-shops would all be closed, and drinking 
would be as unpopular and less common than em- 
ployees making appropriations for their own use, from 
the Government's till. Barley, wheat and corn would 
find their uses in bread, and the product of the vine 
would be appropriated to its proper use. The moral 
influence that ladies could exert in staying the tidal 
wave of drunkenness that is sweeping back to the 
ocean of death the brightest hopes of this promising 
land, would be far more powerful to save than is the 
allied power of alcohol to destroy. Even were its force 
quadrupled an hundred fold, it would then fall power- 
less before the irresistible influence of woman. The 
husband, father, brother or lover, though they may be 
valiant in battle, and of heart impervious to fear, yet 
of all creatures which God has created the}^ are the 
weakest, when the battle is waged against the loving 
affections of the woman whom they adore. They are 
led by her, yield to her and obey her loving mandates. 
The only fortifications that guard the domestic circle 
and render it secure, are the bulwarks of love, and its 
ramparts are the welcoming smile, the cheering word, 
kindly attentions and the tender caress. Ladies, these 
are the weapons with which God your Father has 
panoplied your soul and walled you round. They are 
the flaming swords which are to keep out from your 
earthly elysium discord and drunkenness, with the 
gloomy train of its horrid consequences. These 
womanly graces and tributes of love are the anathemas 
before whose divine presence the evil spirit embodied 



35. 

in alcohol, will coweringly hide away into the shades 
of forgetfulness, leaving you in full possession of the 
mansion of love of which its owner had accounted 
you its worthy occupant. In arraigning the culprit 
(drunkenness) for trial before the tribunal of an im- 
partial judgment, while we do not altogether exonerate 
the felon, still we charge in a great measure the re- 
sponsibility of the crime upon the indifference with 
which ladies regard the foul offense which steals upon 
its victim while he is yet unaware. In the economy 
with which God has provided for the government of 
mankind, He has so ordained that the stronger 
should be sustained, influenced, governed and con- 
trolled by the weaker. Woman, by the delicacy of 
her persuasion, by her example and affectional nature, 
has from the beginning of time been the emperor of 
man. While he courts her favor, he bows at her man- 
dates, and becomes her willing, unconscious slave. 
She rules his heart, sways his judgment and controls 
his actions, in the savage as well as in the civilized 
breast. In the fiery heat of his passion she looks up- 
on him, and the hand raised in wrath to slay falls 
powerless at his side. As examples of these facts, I 
quote the name of the Queen of the North American 
Indians, Pocahontas, and the unlettered girl of France, 
Joan of Arc. 

Where is the stalwart heart so stout 

But that to woman bows } 
Or where the will howe'er so bent 
But by the power of women lent — 
On her high, holy mission sent. 

Finds a redeeming clause ? 



36 

But what shall we say for the moral status of those 
in authority, who, for the paltry sum of a few dollars 
added to the coffers of a city treasury, will legalize 
the crime of dealing out to human beings potations of 
distilled death and swift destruction on nearly every 
street-corner, and flaunt its glaring, high-handed crimes 
even under the shadows of the sanctuary, whose chim- 
ing bells and stalwart towers proclaim, " Holiness to the 
Lord, and good will to men." Are these the guardi- 
ans of the peace, and the executors of the municipal 
government? For what, then, is there to hope ? Is 
the government in the hands of a thoughtless rabble 
on election days ? Where are the vast army of. church 
members, who subscribe in their tenets of faith to 
orderliness and sobriety ? Where are the myriads of 
order-loving citizens, whose ballot should be cast in 
favor of the best interests of the people at large ? 
Does familiarity with crime render it less obnoxious to 
them, and the stench of its filthiness less unsavory, 
that they roll it as a sweet morsel under their tongue, 
while they cry, "A little more sleep, a little more slum- 
ber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep," that 
they may withhold their hands from the ballot which 
shall close these gates of hell, and the entrance to the 
jaws of death ? When God shall gather up his jewels, 
how hardly shall these order-loving, responsibility- 
shirking, church-going citizens be saved ? As the vast 
army of inebriates pass in review before His throne, 
will not the Lord of the harvest of tares and wheat 
say to unrighteous voters : " Inasmuch as ye failed to 
preserve the sanctity of your high trust, and save these 
men, by your ballot, from the terrible curse which has 
befallen them, ye have done it unto me." As terrible as 



37 

was the fate that befell Sodom and Gomorrah, shall it 
not be " more tolerable for them in the day of judg- 
ment than for these ? " The people of to-day are en- 
lightened, and before Heaven's high tribunal they can- 
not put in the plea of ignorance. The influence of 
the earnest prayers and executive acting of high-minded, 
noble-hearted women have closed the doors of thous- 
ands of rum shops from Maine to the Pacific ; and the 
ballots of the stronger sex have opened up again these 
infamous sluice-ways to poverty, shame, and an igno- 
minious death. What is the result ? Riotous excesses 
reel their putrescent forms where thrift and happiness 
had assumed their honored sway ; homes are laid waste 
of love and affection. Drunkenness, with its squalid 
train of crimes, stalks boldly forth to cast their dark- 
ening shadows on the horizon of our beloved land. 

There is more potency of hell in spirituous and 
malt liquors than have been reserved for all the other 
forces of damnation with which sin has souo;ht to drag; 
humanity down to perdition. Its effects are to cripple 
the capacities of the intellect, palsy the powers of the 
soul and demoralize the functions of the physical sys- 
tem. It transforms the image of God in man into a 
fiend, and imbrutes those who indulge in its hellish 
nectar. According to the census of the Internal Rev- 
enue Reports, it is costing our people a yearly expen- 
diture of over one billion five hundred million dollars. 

It is making yearly one hundred and thirty thousand 
confirmed drunkards. 

It is sending yearly about one hundred and fifty 
thousand to drunkard's graves, and reducing to beg- 
gary two hundred thousand children. 

It is sending yearly to prison one hundred thousand 
persons. 



38 

Is not this report sufficient to engage the interest of 
every philanthropist, and secure the attention of every 
lover of humanity ? 

The drunkard attempting to reform is fighting a 
battle such as only a god might expect to win. 

In his brighest moments, when the victory seems 
nearly won, how often do we see him, like the sow that 
was washed, return to his wallowing in the mire. O 
young man ! as you value happiness, honor and man- 
hood ; as you cherish her to whom you have given 
your heart's holiest affections ; as you regard the mem- 
ory of her who gave you birth, and by your hopes 
of immortal bliss, forswear thy soul against the intoxi- 
cating cup, and for the benefit of those who shall 
come after you, swear your anathemas forever against 
it, lest it shall be the " Bridge of Sighs '' over which 
your friends shall mourn your helpless and lost con- 
dition. 

Oh, proud and exalted man, to whom the govern- 
ment has entrusted, by reason of the ballot, the guar- 
dianship of the best interests of the country, the hap- 
piness of the people, and the sanctity of the domestic 
circle : if the righteous shall scarcely be saved, how can 
you expect to escape the condemnation of Heaven ? 
What subterfuge shall have power to hide you from 
the condemning judgment of your own soul, in the day 
when the spirits of men shall stand undressed before 
the tribunal of their own conscience, and the searching 
eye of an impartial God ? 



39 



Our Country as it Was and Is. 

In the primeval morning time, 

There nature's quiet breast 
Lay in its virgin solitude, 

Unbroken in its rest. 

And no response from woodman's ax 
Was heard in wood or glade, 

The soil, unbroken by the plow, 
Or by the gardener's spade. 

The hills had slept in quiet mood 
The glade and plains among. 

No clash of warrior's arms had there 
Among their fastness rung. 

The birds, in sweetest, softest notes 

Their melody prolonged, 
The Eagle from its dizzy height 

Shrieked out its clarion song. 

The restive bear fawned with her whelps 

In playful, sportive glee. 
The sighing water's virgin breast 

Rolled silvery to the sea. 

The Indian roamed in stealthy quest 
For game and antlered deer. 

While not a thought e're stirred his breast 
That savored of a fear. 

The prairies with sweet incense fanned 
The early morning air. 



40 

The daintiest gifts that nature planned 
Sent up their voiceless prayer. 

And in her virgin solitude 

She wafted o'er the seas, 
The incense of her flowery plains 

On pulses of the breeze. 

Columbus caught the cycling wave 

By inspiration given, 
And triumphed o'er contending fate, 

And made our shores his haven. 

The van of Empires set its sails 

Our country to explore, 
And plant the ensign of the cross 

That Indians miofht adore. 



^&' 



Another band thereafter came, 
They were of sterling worth. 

Yet persecution drove them from 
The land that Q:ave them birth. 



&•■ 



And here they built their council fires. 

On Plymouth's solid rock ; 
Religion was the basic law 

Of that illustrious stock. 

The holy treaty — pledge of truth — 
By Penn, and Indians given, 

Was like unto the law of Faith 
Twixt man and Courts of Heaven. 

The sacred pledge inviolate, 
How firm the treaty stands. 

And peace and friendship — heavenly link- 
Was monarch in the land. 



41 

One hundred years ! stupendous march, 
The song of Freedom sung, 

Since honest men for liberty. 
Broad-cast their ensign swung. 

Then came the conflicts, carnage, strife, 

Of revolution fame. 
Right royally was then acquired 

A patriotic name. — 

Theirs was a purpose grand and true, 

For liberty and right, 
For this, they sacrificed their homes. 

For this, they dared to fight. 

For this, the clarion sound of war 
Rang forth with accents shrill, 

For this, the roll of liberty 
Was called at Bunker Hill. 

For this, brave Warren fearless fell 

In battle's hottest strife, 
For this, the noble Captain Hale 

Laid down a hero's life. 

For this, the dreadful Valley Forge 

Lay crimsoned in its snow. 
And blood of noble patriots 

Did copiously flow. 

And heroes breakfasted on fares 

Such as a beggar scorns, 
For this, they breasted heat and cold, 

And slept in sleet and storms. 

For this, the women also toiled, 
Their zeal undimned by gloom. 



42 



More earnest plied the busy wheel, 
The needle and the loom. 

Their little ones were cradled then, 

In agony and fear, 
While terror chilled each mother's heart, 

And froze the starting tear. 

But liberty their efforts crowned. 

And valor set them free ; 
Long live the memory of the day 

When they destroyed the tea. 

Our Country in its rapid growth. 

Full populous we see. 
And enterprises ply their arts 

To th' music of the free. 

Where roamed the Indian in his quest 
Through glade and forest wild. 

There now is heard the song of mirth 
From many a happy child. 

And where prime nature sang alone 

Her symphonies of praise. 
There now is heard the harmonies 

Of nation's tuneful lays. 

And in our Country's amplitude 

She offers on her soil 
A full, a free and lib'ral home, 

Just recompense of toil. 

The mountain fastnesses reveal 
Their stock of hoarded gold. 

And mines of vast intrinsic wealth 
Their stores to us unfold. 



43 

The industries set up their art 

On mountain top and plain, 
And faithful nature in response 

Yields up her golden grain. 

We have in the mechanic's skill 

The sciences combined, 
And proofs of progress of the age 

In our inventions find. 

In surgery and medicine 

We rank as first in place, 
With those who in the medic skill 

The art of science grace. 

Our press, untrammeled in its use, 
Has grand achievements wrought, 

And still its broad, gigantic power 
Dilates the world of thought. 

Our commerce traffics on all seas, 

Its boundaries o'er all lands, 
Nations with admiration see 

The power its strength commands. 

Steam with its power plies on the wastes, 

Our monarchs of the main. 
And subtile air comes in for share 

Her honors to maintain. 

And men seek in aerial height 

A power to gravitate 
Midway between the heaven and earth 

In equipoise of state. 

Our railroads span from shore to shore, 
While lightning binds the main, 



44 

And Nations evermore will sing 
For Morse his proud refrain. 

Our cities all along the line 

With manufactories teem ; 
Up rise our church spires, lofty domes, 

Inthroned in dazzling sheen. 

And schools of academic art 

Now grace our fair domain ; 
The East, the West, the North, the South, 

Join in the loud refrain — 

Of wisdom, excellence and love 

To Him who from on high 
Doth trace each Nation in its reign. 

And casts its final die. 

The harmonies of chiming bells 

Proclaim our day of rest, 
Millions of earnest worshipers 

Its sanctity has blessed. 

Societies of Brotherhood 

Fraternal clasp the hand. 
And are a strong, protecting link 

Throughout our glorious land. 

Their temples rise in lofty towers, 

To Solomon date back. 
For charities and noble deeds 

They have indeed no lack. 

Religions here from Church and State 

Receive a sanction wide, 
While education full and free 

Walks stately by its side. 



45 



Our statesmen have been men of mark, 
And sterling, strong, and true ; 

When discord shook the Ship of State, 
They saw her safely through. 

Our clergy, poets, artisans. 
Distinction have acquired — 

Their oratory, song, and art, 
Scholastics have admired. 

Our Washington, and Lincoln, too, 

Bold champions of right, 
Their names will ever thrill the pulse 

Of Nations with delight. 

Our jurists have, with wisdom, shown 
Their knowledge of just law, 

And set the Constitution right 
Wherein it had a flaw. 

Our Army and our Navy, brave. 

Achieved an envious fame. 
And History's eventful page. 

Enrolls each gallant name. 

Beneath our country's pillared fame 

A serpent's deadly coil 
Lay silent in our Roll of State — 

A monster to despoil. 

Its circling, grasping, hideous form 
Had been the people's pet ; 

'Twas handled with the softest touch, 
A Nation's fears beget. 

But on that pyre our sacrifice, 
Undaunted, undismayed, 



46 

By North and South most precious lives 
As offerings were laid. 

Convulsions shook, like Sinai, 

Our country and its pride. 
Ere Justice gave the final stab, 

From which the Monster died. 

Our soldiers' Decoration Day ! 

We spread a floral pall 
Both for the North and South alike — 

Our Country lost them all. 

Here let us bridge the chasm o'er 

Of fratricidal strife, 
And stronger bind the welded link* 

Which QTuards our Nation's life. 

Our Country's glorious jubilee 
Throughout the welkin rings ; 

Imperial powers and dynasties 
Their off 'ring to us brings, 

Historic Independence Hall, 
With wide, extended courts. 

Makes room for all the Governments, 
To contrast their reports 

With what a fair Republic 's gained. 
Since Seventeen Seventy-six. 

How Progress crowns each effort made 
That 's set in Freedom's niche. 

Now, Freedom reigns o'er all the plains 
Throughout this vast domain, 

* Justice and Freedom. 



47 

The forge has turned to pruning-hooks 
What once were galling chains. 

Our flag now waves, in ampler folds, 

In every land and sea — 
Midst shot and shell has reigned supreme, 

Ensign of liberty. 

Oh, eagle ! rise on loftiest wings, 

Ring forth the tuneful lyre. 
Till Freedom's glorious harmonies 

Each nation shall inspire. 

Till Liberty, as free as thought, 

In equity shall reign, 
And Truth and Science build a forge 

To weld the golden chain.* 



Is Man Intrinsically Evil? 

No! In silver-tongued eloquence comes forth the 
response from all the primal elements of God^s crea- 
tive power, lying latent or in active operation in ani- 
mate or in inanimate organism. For, as in the pro- 
gress of creation, the Great Artificer reviewing each 
of his created works pronounced them " very good," 
who shall best pass judgment — the clay or the Potter 
who fashioned the clay ? 

Every passion of man's soul, every element in his 
organism, every impulse in his nature, is as pure and 

* Liberty and Equity. 



48 

holy in its intrinsic merit, as the blush that painted 
its first kiss on the primeval morning sky. 

Love and its corresponding demands met in the 
gratification of its indulgencies are the crowning glory 
of the essential elements of humanity. 

And the mighty Architect, in fitting up this world 
for the habitation of man, had in view the justice of 
the demands in physical organism. 

And creation shows how beautifully, harmoniously 
and wisely God has provided for their adjustment. 

We are so fashioned as to demand and relish food, 
and the gratification of this commandment written 
upon the organism, supplies nutriment for human con- 
tinuance. 

We love water, and its indulgence aids in supplying 
the fluids of the system and in promoting the general 
health. We love air, and without its support we per- 
ish directly. 

We love the light, and the answering of the requi- 
sition of this demand unfolds to us the beauties and 
harmonies of God's created works. 

We enjoy the shady night, and in its infoldment we 
derive that recuperation so essential to sustain the 
nervous energies. 

We are sensitively alive to the delicious fragrance 
and enchanting beauty of flowers, and in gratifying 
this passion of the soul our habits and tastes are 
lifted up through the sublime to the artistic decora- 
tions of our houses, gardens and homes. 

We love the opposite sex of our kind (" Male and 
Female created He them ") and by the fulfillment of the 
commandment — irrevocably written in humanity's 
soul, and stamped upon every fiber and tissue of its 



49 

finely and delicately attuned organism, arid wastes 
and fertile plains become populous, cities rise up in 
magnificent splendor all over the land, industries, arts 
and science flourish, religion receives its base on which 
to build its sacerdotal structure, and Heaven itself teems 
with spiritual intelligences, having come up through 
the human organism in fulfillment of the first com- 
mandment that went forth to man upon the warm 
breath of Jehovah. 

While I recognize the justice of the claims of all 
physical demands, I would have their clamorings ascend 
the scale of intelligence, and sanctified by the ojieness 
of love, sit enshrined amid the spiritual and intellect- 
ual regions of the brain, the trio acting as umpire over 
head and heart. 

The apparent evil and misshapen developments of 
Humanity are the results of the misapplication of the 
footprints of Divinity so subtly infused into the in- 
trinsic essences of humanities spiritual and physical 
organism. 

Sensibilities of pain, apprehensible through our 
mental, affectional and bodily organism, arouse in us 
the elements of defense and of self-preservation, the. 
misapplication and perversion of which would amount 
to ostensible antagonism to the very law we desire to 
preserve, and men would become unjustly aggressive 
in the misappropriation of a wise benefaction. And 
thus it is to be seen, man is noi naturally evil : he is 
only so by perversion of natural laws. 

The bridle by which the steed of human impulse, 
passion, inspiration and desire may be properly reined 
is the Mighty Commander of the universe, and no 
other power can entirely control and develop the hu- 



50 

man soul and marshal all its capabilities so as to de- 
velop in perfect symmetry the beauty of its intrinsic 
merit. 



Harmony of Spirit and Matter. 

The harmony of human souls is like a river, whose 
perpetual flow winds on together into the ultimate sea 
of each one's spirituality ; whose terminus is the ex- 
haustless ocean of spiritualized intellectuality ; whose 
fountain is the fathomless storehouse of infinity, ren- 
dered capable of eternal and limitless progression by 
reason of the constant influx of the centripetal spirit, 
which creates, and naught can destroy ; which wills, 
and revolving worlds obey ; which looks, and foam- 
ing seas become as gentle as a rill ; which speaks, and 
wondering hosts stand still ; at whose behest stars and 
planets swell the glad anthem of universal praise ; 
whose echo reverberates through all the vaults of heaven, 
and sends its cadence of gladness down into the cheer- 
less, rayless, sunless, loveless abyss of woe, till impris- 
oned souls with wonder see their God, and, joining in 
the sweet refrain, own " Him Lord of all." Then 
shall the bridegroom and the bride be indivisible ; then 
shall the " lion and the lamb lie down together," and 
the child of Truth shall lead them ; then shall Universal 
Nature, joining with the morning stars, answer back 
the refrain as issued from the mouth of Jehovah, " the 
mornings and the evenings of the eternity of ages be- 
hold thy works, and pronounce them very good." 



51 

Oh, joy inexpressible, 

Oh, bhss ineffable. 

Oh, wondrous love divine. 

*' The heavens Thy glory, Lord, declare — 
The earth Thy works proclaim," 

All Nature 's ruled by Thy command, 
And glorifies Thy name. 

Eternal harmony is Thine, 

In heaven, and earth, and sea. 
Thy home 's throughout the realms of space, 

Thy days — Eternity. 

Thou fadest not by length of years. 

Nor yet by age grows old. 
All time with Thee is as ' twere not — 

In Thee all things infold. 

Or ever worlds began, Thou wert — 

Or fade — Thou still shalt be, 
Eternal youth is Thine abode — 

Thou fill'st immensity. 

Thy chariot s the universe 

Borne on the wheels of time, 
Worlds uncreate, at Thy command, 

Wheel quickly into line. 

From out the vast expanse of space 

Thou dost creation bring. 
And new-born worlds join in Thy praise, 

Thou Universal King. 

Thy holy temple 's far beyond 
The range of mortal thought, 



52 

From out Thy sanctuary, Lord, 
Thou hast creation brought. 

There, in that fathomless abyss, 

Thou walkest, Lord, alone, 
And whereso'er creation is — 

Thou hast set up Thy throne. 

And in the finite realms of space, 

Each grade ascending higher. 
Thou hast evolved the human race 

Of which Thou art the sire. 

His heart to Thine so well attuned, 

A living, thinking lyre, 
Thou canst within his being reign. 

Thou dost his soul inspire. 

Upon his brain Thou didst reflect 

The impress of Thy thought, 
And thus within man's conscious soul 

Thou hast Thyself inwrought. 

And thus through organism came 

The seraphs in their line. 
May be it were of finer mould 

That stamped them more divine. 

What though the mould were coarse or fine. 

It changeth not Thy plan, 
Eternal life Thou hast inwrought 

Through intellectual man. 

In his formation Thou hast found 

A substance near akin. 
To that within Thy spotless self. 

Free from the taint of sin. 



53 

So perfect in his heart attuned 

To that of Thy own lyre, 
Thou hast in him an essence found 

Of earth 't is something higher. 

And touched by Thy magnetic will 

Responsive to Thy thought, 
Blending within his finer parts 

Thou hast Thyself inwrought. 

How wondrous is Thy mighty love 

In all Thy works displayed, 
In tempest — in the tiny flower, 

Thy glory is arrayed. 

Oh ! how shall man attempt to scan 

The wisdom of Thy will, 
Whate'er of Qrood there is — Thou art — 

May be what seemeth ill. 

Or erst the mind can comprehend 

Of Thee the smallest part, 
Thou takest up Thy blest abode 

Within the human heart. 

Unknown, unseen, yet all around. 

In everything Thou art, 
Throughout all time, throughout all space, 

Thou art the greater part. 

And yet so subtle is Thy power, 

Thy essence so divine, 
Impossible to search Thee out. 

Thy nature to define. 

The pearly dew-drop is Thy tear, 
Thou dost descend in rain, 



54 

And yet to find Thy biding-place 
Man ever must complain. 

Thou look'st to us through every star, 

Thy voice is in the rill, 
It speaks to us in softest tones, 

And thunders with it thrill. 

We see Thy majesty and power 
In worlds revolving round, 

In everything by beauty shaped 
Thy loveliness is found. 

Thy heart of tender sympathy 
Pulsates the mortal breast, 

And entering into human souls 
Gives Thy beloved rest. 



HAS EEYELATION CEASED ? 

The cadences from time past, the inspiration of the 
present, the mutterings and golden glimmerings of the 
future, answer, with indisputable, knowledge-laden 
tongues. No ! Great as may have been the ages of the 
past, science, with its imperial, glittering dawn of the 
present unfolding of truth, casting its aurora high o'er 
the mountain tops of a false theology, and into the 
cavern-vaults of superstition, responds, there cometh 
other revelations, whose record shall be greater than 
that which time has rolled back on the scroll of the 
past. 



55 

The pioneers of intellectual, spiritual and moral de- 
velopment, which have long since passed into the eter- 
nity of ages, have but broken up the fallow ground for 
a greater advancement, wherein is hidden the more 
precious germs of truth, to be followed again by those 
on whom the dispensation of revelation shall have dif- 
fused a more glorious awakening. The tall oaks of 
superstition, planted by the hand groping in darkness, 
still grasping after light, are, one by one, being up- 
rooted by the flaming sword of truth, issuing from the 
Eden of divine revelation. Witchcraft and wiseacres 
have been supplanted by modern intelligence. The 
law of cause and effect has consigned to a resurrec- 
tionless tomb the superstitious bigotry of the ancients 
Intolerance and religious persecutions have given way 
to a liberal and consistent faith; while God the Father, 
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, are each and 
all closely allied to humanity, and see us not afar off ; 
neither do we look at them as through a " glass, 
darkly," but behold them " face to face," through the 
marvellous tissues of nature's handy works. " In His 
own image created He man, male and female created 
He them," and the life or spirit which they inherit, 
came it not from the breath of His own nostrils, there- 
by having created humanity as heirship to a most 
royal knighthood, of which God the Father is the 
Grand Potentate, and of which each and every member 
is approximating a glorious ultimatum in the family of 
God, through the revelations of coming ages. God 
the Father (eternal Spirit, ana first great cause), God 
the Son (as manifested in humanity), and God the 
Holy Ghost (the soul's sweet Comforter), rnust forever 
remain in communion together: and hence revelations 



56 

from Father to child must exist, until, in the culmina- 
tion of ages, they shall inherit one counsel-chamber 
together. 

The laborers, animate and inanimate, are bursting 
the charnel houses wherein are imprisoned famishing 
souls, hungering for more light ; and Revelation, clad 
in imperial robes, fresh from the hand of the Infinite, 
is proclaiming, " Peace on earth, and good will to 
men." 

The zephyrs waft the glad tidings from the four 
winds of heaven. The gentle dews and falling rain, 
with tears of sparkling gladness, tell anew the revela- 
tion of love. Each warbling songster is but a heaven- 
ordained minister, having received the rights of priest- 
hood to sing the songs of universal praise. Each 
flower, which lifts its face to greet the morning sun, 
tells the beneficence of that power which creates in 
love, and despoils but to resurrect in greater glory. 
Each trembling blade of grass points to the eternal 
dome from whence naught but goodness flows. Each 
murmuring brook and bejeweled cascade sigh the 
requiem of a somber-clad priesthood, and welcome in, 
as they wind on with musical flow to the sea, the in- 
coming era of hope and intellectual advancement, in 
which the light of science and spirituality unfold the 
rich developments of a higher revelation, wherein is 
seen the manifest wisdom of that universal law of 
love which creates in wondrous harmony the mighty 
concourse of heavenly worlds, and fits them up as 
habitations for the soul on which the signet of im- 
mortality has been stamped, and the index-finger of 
eternal progression has affixed its seal. " God mani- 
fest in the flesh " is seen in the kindling emotion of 



57 

intellectuality, as it radiates the sparkling eye, and 
reflects itself in the changing countenance, giving 
expression to the language of thought ere the lips had 
fashioned its utterance. In acts of kindly benevolence, 
which give words of cheer to the disconsolate, or 
smoothes a care from the furrowed brow of age, or 
gives encouragement to the young aspirant as he 
struggles up the rocky cliffs in his pursuit after the 
golden grain scattered here and there from the ripened 
sheaves of a more advanced harvest, as in every act 
of devotion in which the developing soul seeks after 
light from the fountains of truth, may be seen God 
manifest in the flesh. It is not necessary to go to 
Jerusalem to receive fresh sources of inspiration or 
revelation, nor yet to Mount Horeb or Pisgah, nor to 
the inner temple, where rested the ark of the cove- 
nant, in Vvhich were deposited the tables of stone, the 
commandments of the Jewish dispensation ; but to 
that inner sanctuary of the human soul wherein the 
vulture's eye hath not seen nor the lion's whelps trod- 
den ; where God takes up his habitation with human- 
ity ; where the tables are ever spread in the living, 
pulsating temple, ready to receive the commandments 
and dispensations of revelation which the Omniscient 
is ever inscribing upon his living tablets. Here is a 
higher priesthood than was Moses or Aaron, a priest- 
hood which not only has viewed the promised land, 
but has fitted it up for our habitation, and is now 
journeying with us, a "pillar of cloud by day and a 
pillar of fire by night "; and He will surely pass with 
us safely through the Red Sea and the wilderness of 
doubt, making sure our passport to the summer land, 
where our triumphant souls shall bask in the sunshine 



58 

of eternal truth, and our feet walk the fields ever 
fresh with the budding blossoms, whose fruit withereth 
not nor perisheth. but remains an eternal inheritance 
for the healing of the nations. Should time complete 
its rounds of evolutions, and the scroll of its record 
be deposited only in the archives of eternity, and 
there should be no more day nor night ; still would the 
dawning day of new and perpetual revelation be the 
light before which all present luminaries would pale 
in their luster, and with angel hosts ascribe the bright- 
ness of everlasting glory to Him " who is the way, the 
truth and the life " ; who from everlasting to everlast- 
ing is the ever-present revelation of good-will to man. 
Every ray of science which sends its divergent flashes 
of light athwart the intellectual sky, giving new 
sources of delight to the enraptured soul, is but an- 
other revelation from Jehovah sent out as a winged 
messenger of love from the great store-house of treas- 
ures resting in the cabinet of Infinity, every one of 
which is a link binding man more closely to his God. 

Through revelation we clasp hands with the In- 
finite ; and as a child, look trustingly and reverently 
into the face of our Father. How joyfully we trace 
His footsteps in the ages of the past, the music of the 
spheres having kept time to His foot-falls. 

How eagerly we grasp the hand He so lovingly ex- 
tends, and through communion with Him as mani- 
fested in the revelation of His works, hold counsel 
with cherubims and seraphims, who sung their anthems 
at creation's early dawn. Each sea-shell (cloistered in 
ocean's briny depths) has, in the drapery of its varie- 
gated colorings, fresh developments of a wondrous reve- 
lation, and clearly shows, on its canvas-shell, the deli- 



59 

cate tracings of an unrivaled Artist. The tiny insect 
with its meager thread of Hfe, artistically and success- 
fully building up its temple from the depths of ocean 
to the crest of its billowy wave, is but planting on 
coral reef another expression of divine revelation. 
The mountains, as they lift their formidable heights, 
piercing the vaults of the eternal blue, resting their 
heads on the bosom of the sky, as if to approach 
nearer to the counsel chambers of Infinity, that they 
miofht hear the more secret conclave thereof, are but 
another chapter, in which is penciled by the finger of 
Jehovah the teachings of his incomparable law. The 
circling rounds of ages past have inscribed on their 
tablets of stone, as indelibly as were the command- 
ments on the mount, the history of their record ; and 
the manifold coverings wove in the loom of incalcula- 
ble ages, wrapped and interlaced over and around the 
stony frame-work of earth, are but the canvas sheets, 
upon whose warp and woof the shuttle of time has 
written in its thread-work the outgoings and incom- 
ings of the footprints of Omnipotence ; until, by His 
munificent power. He has brought order out of chaos, 
and has caused the barren rock to blossom as the rose, 
and the " Sons of God to shout for joy." Great and 
incomparable as He is, in the majesty of His creation, 
and in the manipulations of His law and love ; still He 
claims kinship to earth, and to the inhabitants thereof; 
holding them in the hollow of His hand, fanning them 
with the breath of His nostrils, and feeding them from 
His sumptuous spread tables. The nations lying latent 
in the womb of future ages will read from chapters of 
earth and rock our record, as we now read the myste- 
rious history of the peoples which have preceded us. 



6o 

Herculaneum, now unveiling herself in the confines of 
her long imprisoned tomb, is but giving to us a fresh 
revelation of the wondrous past; and the cloistered 
womb of earth, now made cavernous by the miner's 
hand, is lifting the vail from the temple where God had 
hid away earth's rarest treasures. So science, which 
is but another name for revelation, is constantly un- 
folding to our vision the mysteries of God's marvelous 
storehouse ; until, through the agency of revelation, the 
trinity of intelligence, (God, man and angels) shall sit 
down and hold sweet counsel together. In the seeth- 
ing tempest which shakes to the very center the super- 
structure of one's being, the heart lifts its complain- 
ings to the Infinite ; and though no wail may escape 
the compressed lips, yst a smothered sigh of anguish 
pierces the vaults of Heaven, unbars the tabernacle 
where dwells the source of all compassion, and angels, 
ever in sympathy with the tender heart of Jehovah, 
come in response to the call, which binds all intelli- 
gence into one great family of unity, to offer min- 
istrations of condolence, and impart their sustaining 
strength ; and man, linking hands with the angels, is 
enabled to walk, in the dignity of his manhood, up- 
right in the presence of his God. Though the tem- 
pest shall howl ever so fierce, still, behind the mutter- 
ing thunders of a frowning Sinai, watching the sway- 
ing tempest, holding in His hand the forked lightning 
which pierces the spirit, sits a loving Father, directing 
the storm ; and in the deep sea-soundings of the soul, 
above the roar of the tempest, may be heard, as of 
yore, the " Master's " voice, bidding the storm in the 
heart of the tempest-tossed mariner, " be still." The 
roaring cataract, which bears the spirit down to the 



6i 

whirlpool of despair, hears His voice ; and the bil- 
lowy waves, rearing their frowning crests mountain 
high, behold His face, and in abashment backward roll, 
and pillow themselves on the sobbing bosom of the 
deep. The winds, rending into shreds the web-work 
of the soul, see the divine presence, and fold them- 
selves in the shrouds of heaven ; while the nearly- 
wrecked mariner, loosed from his moorings, like the 
gigantic iceberg of the North, to be borne down to 
the gulf-stream, there to he lapped up by the rays of a 
tropical sun, looks trustingly into the " Master's " assur- 
ing face, and walks the swelling breast of sorrow's 
wave unharmed — secure in the panoply of angels. 

A saving Christ walks the wave of Gallilee in hu- 
manity's stricken heart to-day, as boldly as He did in 
the days of a sinking Peter. Moses and Elias are now 
in as close proximity to earth as when they were seen 
in transfiguration on the mount ; and God spoke not 
more audibly to Adam in the garden, than He calls to 
man in this, the nineteenth century : while angels, in 
their divine mission, sent out by the Father, walk the 
earth, clad in the habiliments of men, as really as did 
the three with whom Abraham conversed ; and in the 
prophetic teachings of the " wise men " of to-day, the 
expressions of divine will are as clearly manifest as 
they were in the earlier revelations given to John on 
the Isle of Patmos. The Pool of Siloam, touched by 
the healing virtues of the Eternal, is as efficacious to 
cleanse the leprous spots, as were its troubled waters 
when beholding in the embodiment of man that power 
which spake the dead into life, and caused the scales 
to fall from eyes hitherto shut out from the light of 
day. 



62 



ART. 

Art is the achievement and development of the con- 
ceptions of the imagination which the ingenuity of 
man has reduced to a science and practice, in which 
are found symmetry of form, elegance of proportion, 
and the perfection of beauty ; the key of which is held 
in the hand of Omnipotence, who alone is the Master 
of Art, and from whom all its devices have been bor- 
rowed. The schedules from which men draw their 
designs are spread out on earth and sky; while Infinity 
works from the limitless canvas-sheet of His own 
imagery. From time to time He drops a link to earth, 
by which the ingenious Spirit of Art unravels the 
beauteous mystery, and with an admiration akin to 
worship, men pause, and pay profound homage to that 
which Jehovah hath touched. He distills and draws 
unto Himself by the magnetic power of His will from 
the subtle principles of earth and air, the properties 
with which to paint the sun-beam, and to color the 
rose. The gray of ocean and the emerald green of 
forest and meadow-land were inwoven by the chemical 
shuttle of Divine Art. The pencil and brush which 
decorates with multiplicity of pictures the plumage of 
the feathered tribe, are wielded by Him whose good- 
ness lets not a sparrow fall to the ground without His 
notice. The landscape of hills, plains, mountains, and 
valleys were sculptured by the artistic chisel of Inflex- 
ible Will. A place for the rivers, oceans, and seas was 
inlaid by the diamond edge of thought, while their 
waters were made soluble by the kneading of God's 
plastic hand. The Heavens were builded in their 



63 

magnificent splendor by the architectural design of 
Supremacy, and their ever-changing, floating drapery, 
tinted with unrivaled colors, weaving themselves into 
fantastic shapes and forms, was the study of Nature's 
Upholsterer. The conceptions of Raphael and the wild 
imagery of Dore were but the felt influences upon their 
sensitive brains of a reflection of the electro-magnetic 
thought of God, breathed upon their souls as an in- 
spiration, and by them transferred to the canvas a mere 
copy of Divine Art. 

The sublime pictures traced by the poet's fancy, the 
dreams of Milton, the transition of Dante's fervid im- 
aginings, like the awful scenes portrayed by John on 
the Isle of Patmos, were but emanations from God, 
with which they had come en rapport. The thought 
on which the orator takes his loftiest flight, clothing 
his conceptions with figures whose touch burns into 
the soul, is but a glimmer of an expression from the 
endless canvas-sheet with which the Almighty wraps 
His Majesty. 



Ill Memory of H. C. Kibbe. 

Oh, the sad, sad hours of anguish, 

Which rent a brother's heart with woe, 

Oh. the galling throes of sadness. 
Which did his noble soul o'erflow. 

Crowded around his earthly vision 
Clouds of deadly, darkest hue. 

Blotting out each ray of sun-light, 
From his spirit vision's view. 



64 

Hope had fled from out its mansion, 
Chased away by trembhng fear, 

Angels well might weep with pity 
O'er his sad untimely bier. 

When the poor came to his notice 
For their wants he freely gave ; 

When he needed consolation, 
Who was there to help or save ? 

Happy they who 'scape the burdens 
Which his wearied soul had known, 

Happy they around whose pathway 
Flowers with fewer thorns are strewn. 

Judge him not, oh erring mortals, 

Heaven alone his jury be ; 
God discerns the secret impulse, 

Men the outward actions see. 






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